I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my experience as a chiropractic resident in the Veterans Administration (VA) health care system and look forward to going to work every day. From the first six months, I have grown in confidence in my clinical skills, experienced and learned from a variety of specialties, and have been encouraged to pursue scholarly and research activities. I often receive questions about the VA chiropractic residency, so I'm sharing the most frequently asked questions and answers based on my experience as a resident at VA Connecticut Healthcare System.

As the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) and its members embark on a new year, we thought we’d take a moment to look back at the top ACA news stories of 2018. From beginning to end, it was an eventful year that brought not only significant internal growth and change to the association but also important progress and achievements for several of ACA’s top legislative priorities.

I am often asked by other providers and veterans why I chose to continue my clinical and professional chiropractic education within the Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system. As the largest healthcare system in the U.S., opportunities for professional growth within the VA are endless. As a new practitioner, VA is a great place to expand your comfort zone, gain experience in integrative care, grow confidence in complex and chronic health conditions, and gain exposure to a variety of clinical settings, as well as didactic and research opportunities.

A VA chiropractic residency exposes participants to a wide range of treatments. In this blog post, resident Vivian Ly, DC, of the Connecticut VA discusses "battlefield acupuncture" or BFA. Air Force Colonel Richard Niemtzow introduced the BFA protocol in 2001 as a subset of auricular acupuncture. In 2013, $5.4 million was awarded to the Departments of Defense (DoD) and Veterans Affairs (VA) to teach BFA to healthcare providers in both the military and department of Veterans Affairs and assess it. Dr. Ly notes that BFA is easily learned and has been proposed to treat a variety of conditions that cause pain in active military members and veterans.

ACA’s annual meeting, the National Chiropractic Leadership Conference, brings you cutting-edge, evidence-based education sessions featuring some of the chiropractic profession’s most respected thought leaders and content experts. Many sessions also offer continuing education credits. Here we pose questions to one of the presenters: James J. Lehman, DC, MBA, whose program is titled, “A Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine Residency: An Example of Interprofessional Collaboration.”